The U.S. Constitution is a short and sublime blueprint for ordered liberty.

At the other extreme, Colorado’s state constitution has become a catch-basin for warring special interests — going so far as to require specific spending increases in categories such as K-12 education even during years when it mandates cuts in the state and local taxes that underwrite those same public schools.

Now, a bipartisan group of state legislators has proposed making it harder to change our state constitution — while also making it easier for citizens to draft initiated laws. As a further incentive for the more flexible statutory changes, the reform plan would require a two-thirds majority for the legislature to alter such a voter-approved statute for the first six years of its existence. That’s the same supermajority it now takes for the legislature to refer a constitutional amendment to voters.

The federal and state constitutions are a study in contrast. The federal charter has been amended just 27 times since it was crafted in 1787 — and 10 of those, known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified by 1791 to limit the power of the new federal government. The Colorado Constitution has been amended 52 times since 1980 alone, adding regulations on hog farms, bear hunts and a bewildering crossfire of tax and spending measures.

The reason for this constitutional hodgepodge isn’t hard to find. Of the 18 states that permit voters to directly initiate constitutional amendments, Colorado has by far the lowest standard. Worse, the requirements are the same for both drafting initiated laws and for casting ideas into constitutional concrete.

Colorado now requires valid signatures from voters equal to just 5 percent of the vote cast in the last election for secretary of state. The reform plan outlined by state Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, would lower that bar to 4 percent of the total vote in the most recent gubernatorial election for an initiated law while raising it to 6 percent for a constitutional amendment.

Based on the 2006 election, current law would require 76,047 signatures to put either a statute or constitutional amendment on this year’s ballot. Under the proposed change, the requirement for an initiated law would drop to 62,335 signatures, while it would take 93,503 signatures to bring a constitutional amendment to the ballot — still the lowest such requirement in the nation.

Additionally, to ensure that all parts of Colorado would have an equal voice in constitutional reform, the proposed standards would require at least 10 percent of the signatures for a constitutional amendment to come from each of the state’s seven congressional districts. However, the 10 percent requirement would not apply to initiated laws.

Such a change would give voters in Pueblo, Grand Junction or Julesburg equal standing with those in such traditional “signature factories” as Denver’s 16th Street Mall in shaping their state’s basic governance document, while voters throughout the state would find it easier to initiate laws to address problems facing them.

These changes reflect some, though not all, of the reforms proposed by a citizens panel formed by the University of Denver. They deserve serious consideration as a way to untangle the Gordian Knot that is now the Colorado Constitution.